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The learning lamp / where military experience and public education meet

The learning lamp / volume 1 issue 1, January 1, 2006

January 1, 2006
Volume I Issue 1
Arizona Troops to
Teachers
Teachers. We have seen a drop
of 1/ 3 in the number of troops
registering for the program. If you
have questions, comments or
concerns you would like me to
address at the national conference
please let me know.
As always, we are here to
serve you in your second career.
Feel free to contact us at any time.
Our contact information is on the
last page of the newsletter.
- John D. Scheuer, MA,
Director, AZ TTT
Inauguratory Welcome
Director’s Travel Schedule
Welcome to the initial issue
of The Learning Lamp, the Ari-zona
Troops to Teachers news-letter.
Let me start by first ex-tending
a wish to all of you for a
joyful, prosperous New Year
filled with much happiness and
success. It seemed to me a quite
fitting time to initiate The Learn-ing
Lamp and extend the forms
of communication between all of
us.
Our presence in the class-rooms
across the state is grow-ing.
We have 422 troops to
teachers in the state of Arizona.
Our records show that there are
approximately 200 currently
teaching. We are extending our
numbers in rural areas and on
the reservations in BIA schools.
Our team of troops is unique,
different than many other states
in the variety of populations
around the state.
I would like to also stress just
how important it is to keep this
office ( and the national office in
Pensacola) updated with accu-rate
information. Please let this
office know whenever you move,
change phone numbers, change
email addresses, contract for
positions, or obtain certification/
endorsements. Many of you
have received the survey from
DANTES/ Troops to Teachers.
It is vital to complete the survey
and return it to Florida. When a
survey is not returned, you are
temporarily withdrawn from the
program. This can eventually
effect stipends and bonuses. As
the ‘ 05- 06 school year nears
ending, this office will be con-tacting
you to inquire if you have
contracted for the ‘ 06- 07 school
year, if you would like assistance
locating a position, and/ or to
counsel you on certification/
highly qualified matters.
There is one last matter I
would like to discuss with you.
In late January the state directors
will assemble in Washington DC
for our annual conference. Nor-mally
this conference is held in
Florida. Washington was se-lected
to make legislators aware
of the importance of the pro-gram
as re- authorization nears in
2006. As you are probably
aware, the U. S. Department of
Education recently changed the
rules surrounding stipends and
bonuses through Troops to
• January 9- 13: Western
States Certification Con-sortium,
San Francisco
• January 22- 26: Troops to
Teachers Annual Confer-ence,
Washington DC
• July 16- 23: DoD World-wide
Education Sympo-sium,
Orlando
Flagstaff Certification Office,
2384 Steves Blvd, Rm # 137,
Flagstaff, AZ 86004
( 928) 679- 8117
February 24, April 28, June 30,
August 25, October 27, De-cember
29
Tucson Certification Office,
400 W. Congress St. # 118,
Tucson, AZ 85701
( 520) 628- 6326
January 20, March 24, May 26,
July 28, September 29, Novem-ber
24
Important Info/ Dates:
• Please review your finger-print
card expiration date
• SEI Provisional Endorsement
requirements must be met
by August 31, 2006
• For many teachers, you
must meet highly qualified
by the end of SY05- 06
• Certification offices will be
closed January 16, 2006
• Notify this office is you con-tract,
move, change email,
etc.
Inside this issue:
Inauguratory Welcome
Director’sTravel Schedule
1
1
Certification News
• SEI
• Early Childhood
• MS Mathematics
• Performance
Assessment
2
2
2
3
3
Highly Qualified 3
Professional Development 4
Alternative Path 4
Teacher Preparation 4
Vet’s News 5
Kudos 5
Recommended Reading 6
The Learning Lamp
Where Military Experience and Public Education Meet
Arizona Department of Educa-tion
Tom Horne, Superintendent of
Public Instruction
CERTIFICATION NEWS
August 31, 2009 and have not
met the requirements for both
the Provisional and Full SEI En-dorsement,
you will be denied
renewal.
There is a list of State Board
approved Professional Develop-ment
Trainers and Institutions
providing credits for SEI. You
may view/ download this list at
the following website:
www. ade. state. az. us/ asd/ lep
Click on the link “ State Board
Approved Endorsement Train-ing”
Questions concerning SEI
Endorsements can be directed
either to Kathy Hill, Education
Program Specialist, English Ac-quisition
Services,
khill@ ade. az. gov, ( 602) 542-
3050, or the Troops to Teachers
State Director.
As you are probably aware,
the State Board of Education
approved the requirement of the
Structured English Immersion
( SEI) Endorsement on January
24, 2005. The Endorsement is
required for those holding an
Elementary, Secondary, Principal,
Supervisor, Superintendent,
Career and Technical, and/ or
Special Education certification.
The endorsement is not re-quired
for those holding a Full
ESL Endorsement or a Full Bilin-gual
Endorsement ( may be re-quired
by district rules).
The Provisional SEI Endorse-ment
is required, as applicable,
by August 31, 2006, and requires
completion of 15 clock hours of
professional development or 1
semester hour ( 1 credit). The
Provisional Endorsement does
not need to be obtained on your
certification by August 31, 2006,
but you must meet the require-ments
for the Endorsement and
have the documentation on file
with your district office by that
date. ( Districts may however, at
their discretion, require obtain-ing
Provisional Endorsement)
The Full SEI Endorsement is
required, as applicable, by Au-gust
31, 2009, and requires an
additional 45 clock hours of
professional development or 3
semester hours ( 3 credits).
If you apply at one time to
obtain a Full SEI Endorsement,
you must fulfill both the require-ments
for the Provisional and
Full. In other words, to obtain
the Full SEI Endorsement you
must have documentation of
either 4 semester hours ( 4 cred-its)
or 60 clock hours of profes-sional
development. If you apply
to renew a certification after
Early Childhood Education Fast Facts
• Teachers serving children birth through kindergarten must have either an Early Childhood Certificate or
Endorsement by July 1, 2009
• Early Childhood Certificate or Endorsement is optional, but recommended, for teachers in grades 1- 3.
• Certificates and Endorsements became available September 26, 2005
• AEPA Assessment for Early Childhood will be available Fall, 2006. If you qualify for, and obtain, Certifi-cate
or Endorsement before the assessment, you will not have to take the assessment.
• Certification Requirements:
• Bachelor’s Degree
• Completion of an approved teacher preparation program in early childhood or 37 semester
hours of coursework in early childhood content areas
• Practicum ( student teaching) of at least 8 semester hours ( 4 in birth- preK, 4 in K- 3)
• Passing score on Early Childhood Professional Knowledge and Subject Knowledge AEPAs
• Endorsement Requirements:
• Current AZ Certification in Elementary Education or Special Education
• 21 hours of coursework in early childhood content areas
• Practicum ( student teaching) of at least 8 semester hours
• Passing score on Early Childhood Subject Knowledge APEA
• National Board Certified Teachers in Early Childhood automatically qualify for Endorsement
More information can be obtained by visiting the Early Childhood web site at
http:// www. ade. az. gov/ earlychildhood/
English Acquisition Services
Irene Moreno
Deputy Associate Superintendent
( 602) 542- 0753
Early Childhood Education
Karen Woodhouse
Deputy Associate Superintendent
( 602) 364- 1530
Alisa Cusseaux,
Administrative Assistant,
( 602) 36401984
Early Childhood Certification /
Endorsement questions:
Kasey Ohrns ( 602) 542- 2029
Page 2 The Learning Lamp
We cannot have a
successful education system
unless all children who
come to school not knowing
English become proficient in
English as quickly as
possible, and succeed
academically. We are
committed 100 percent to
helping the schools achieve
that success.
- State Superintendent of
Public Instruction Tom
Horne, Tucson Citizen,
September 3, 2003.
SEI
Middle School Mathematics
Highly Qualified
Performance Assessment
AEPA is available at the AEPA
web site:
www. aepa. nesinc. com
( 800) 239- 8105
The AZ Troops to Teachers
office, as well as the certification
offices in Flagstaff and Tucson
have AEPA bulletins available to
Troops at no cost.
Beginning in the Spring of 2006,
Secondary Education teachers
will be able to become certified
with an approved area of
“ Middle School Mathematics.”
The Middle School Mathematics
Subject Knowledge AEPA (# 37)
will be available beginning with
the April 8, 2006 AEPA admini-stration.
The company administering
the AEPAs, National Evalua-tion
Systems Inc, has not yet
made study guides or test
objectives available to view/
download. It is anticipated
test objectives will be avail-able
first in the early Spring.
Objectives, Study Guides and
other information regarding
refine initial teaching skills.
Until June 1, 2006, two years
full time, verified teaching ex-perience
will suffice in lieu of the
Performance Assessment to
convert any Provisional Certifi-cate
to Standard Certificate.
Questions concerning Perform-ance
Assessment can be ad-dressed
to Lisa Kelley, Education
Program Specialist, Highly Quali-fied
Professionals,
lisa. kelley@ azed. gov, ( 602) 364-
2191, or the AZ Troops to
Teachers State Director.
Beginning June 1, 2006, teachers
obtaining their initial teaching
certification will be required to
pass the Performance Assess-ment
to convert to a Standard
six year certification. The Per-formance
Assessment will re-quire
a video tape of one’s
teaching, written commentary,
and supporting evidence. De-scriptions
of the process and
materials and methods to sup-port
new teachers who will be
affected are being developed.
The Performance Assessment
is for the purpose of licensure
and quality assurance that new
teachers can demonstrate com-petence
in the Arizona Profes-sional
Teaching Standards. The
Assessment will not replace
building principal observations
and evaluations which serve for
purposes of continued employ-ment.
Just as students are given
a number of opportunities to
pass AIMS, teachers will be al-lowed
to attempt the Perform-ance
Assessment up to five
times. We recommend testing
in third year of career to allow
opportunity to practice and
Before even addressing the sub-ject
of being highly qualified, you
must first be appropriately certi-fied!
In other words, you can
not hold a Secondary Teaching
Certification with an approved
area of Physical Education and
teach 5 classes of Mathematics.
If you teach Mathematics you
must have it as an approved area
on your certification. You can
not hold an Elementary Teaching
Certification and teach Art
unless you have an Art Endorse-ment.
Being appropriately certi-fied
is prerequisite to being
highly qualified.
The Department of Educa-tion
has assembled a “ crosswalk”
to present a visual aid to deter-mine
if you are appropriately
certified and/ or highly qualified.
There are deadlines for which a
teacher must meet highly quali-fied
status as can be seen to the
right.
Information on Highly Quali-fied
requirements may be ad-dressed
to the AZ Troops to
Teachers State Director or to
Vickie Walters, Education Pro-gram
Specialist, Highly Qualified
Professionals Unit, vwal-ter@
ade. az. gov, ( 602) 364- 2192.
More information is also avail-able
by visiting the Department
of Education’s HQ web page at:
www/ ade. az. gov/ asd/ hqtp
A New AEPA exam will be
available in April 2006 to obtain
certification for an approved
area of Middle Grade Mathemat-ics.
Generally speaking, middle
school math consists of low- mid
level algebra and geometry.
Page 3
Are you a competent
teacher? The “ new”
Performance Assessment
will determine what
teachers progress from the
two year certification to the
six year certification.
Volume I Issue 1
Veteran, multi- subject teacher in eligible
rural district*
School Year ‘ 06- 07
New, multi- subject teacher in eligible rural
district
Must be HQ in one area at
time of hire, 2 yrs to be-come
HQ in other areas
New, multi- subject SPED teacher Must be HQ in Math, LA,
or Science at time of hire,
2 yrs to become HQ in
other areas
ALL Other Teachers in All state and char-ter
schools
End of School Year ‘ 05- 06
* a list of eligible REAP schools is available at www. ade. az. gov/ asd/ hqtp
You may view/ download AZ math standards at: www. ade. az. gov/ standards/ contentstandards. asp
Professional Development
Alternative Secondary Path To Certification
For information on profes-sional
development opportuni-ties
beyond that provided by
schools, see the Department’s
Professional Development web
page at:
www. ade. az. gov/ resourcecenter/
professional_ development. asp
To view the professional
development activities that apply
to certification requirements go
to:
www. ade. az. gov/ certification/
prodevactiv. asp
The Department of Educa-tion
has some new, innovative
programs to help you develop as
an educator. As we already
know, a number of professional
development hours are required
to renew the standard six year
teaching certificates. The De-partment
has expanded profes-sional
development opportuni-ties
beyond that provided by
individual districts/ schools.
By first creating the Profes-sional
Development Leadership
Academy ( www. ade. az. gov/ ess/
PDLA/), and more recently
IDEAL ( Integrated Data to En-hance
Arizona’s Learning)
( https:// www. ideal. azed. gov/ cas/)
along with ASSET ( Arizona
School Services Through Educa-tional
Technology)
( www. asset. asu. edu), the De-partment
strives to provide a
wide variety of options for
teachers to develop profession-ally.
More notably has been the
recent integration of Teachscape
into professional development
programs of 33 schools. Teach-scape
provides a multitude of
tools for educators, from online
videos and case analysis, to
online nationwide conferencing,
to a vast document resource
library to links to local “ experts
in the field.”
• 3.0 or higher GPA
• Passing score on the Sub-ject
Knowledge AEPA
• Valid fingerprint card
• “ Letter of Intent to Hire”
from a participating school
district
www. ade. az. gov/ asd/ altpath
Contact: Troops to Teachers
State Director, or Sharon
Turley, Education Program Spe-cialist,
Transition to Teaching.
( 602) 364- 3553,
sturley@ ade. az. gov
Still haven’t earned your teaching
certification? Do you desire to
teach high school? Well, Ari-zona’s
pilot program
“ Alternative Secondary Path to
Certification” just may be what
you’ve been waiting for. You
may have read about this same
program in the Arizona Republic
in their sensationalized term
“ Instant Teacher.” Though you
are not an instant teacher, this
particular program has many
facets that bridge mid career
changers, such as our Troops, to
classroom teachers. Benefits of
the program include:
• Teach immediately follow-ing
the summer training
program and receive full
teacher salary and benefits
• Tuition reimbursement may
be available if you teach in a
high need school and meet
certain other requirements.
• Support of 15- 20 teacher
cohort
• Enter classroom Highly
Qualified.
Requirements:
• Bachelor’s Degree or above
Teacher Prep Programs learning M. Ed., Ed. D., and
Ph. D. degrees in education.
Their programs, however,
do not lead a candidate to
certification. There is no
student teaching/ practicum
in a program through this
institution.
3. www. teachforamerica. org
( also provides up to $ 9,450
in education awards)
When comparing programs
feel free to contact me to deter-mine
which programs meet cer-tification
requirements.
Our AZ Troops to Teachers
web page will soon be updated
with a new section that outlines
a number of available teacher
prep programs.
Three programs you should
know about:
1. University of Great Falls
and Bellevue have part-nered
into a consortium
“ Teach for a Change”
which offers distance learn-ing
Master of Arts in
Teaching ( MAT) degrees
for secondary teachers and
includes a coordinated local
student teaching/ practicum
of 12 credits. The tuition
cost for the MAT is just
over $ 17K ($ 405/ cr). You
may obtain program infor-mation
from the AZ
Troops to Teachers State
Director or by visiting
www. teachforachange. org
2. North Central University in
Prescott offers distance
Make sure you are gaining ade-quate
professional development
hours to keep your certification
current.
What Program Should You Chose
to Become a Teacher in Arizona?
Let the Troops to Teachers staff
offer suggestions/ guidance.
Page 4 The Learning Lamp
Veteran’s News...
KUDO’s
If you are currently teaching
( preferably 3+ years), and would be
interested in mentoring new Troop
Teachers, please review the men-toring
guidelines at the national
Troops to Teachers web page:
www. dantes. doded. mil/ dantes_ web/
troopstoteach-ers/
mentor/ mentor1. htm? Flag= True
If you’d like to be added to the
state Troops web page to mentor
AZ Troops, please notify the AZ
Troops to Teachers State Director.
A hearty congratulations to
fellow Troop to Teacher Eric
Combs who was selected as
Ohio’s Teacher of the Year on
December 14th. Eric is a retired
Air Force Senior Master Ser-geant
and teaches Social Studies
at Fairborn City Schools. You
may be interested in going to his
web site at:
www. mrcombshistory. com
Also, congratulations to Troop
to Teacher Dan Lieja who was
awarded the Department of
Education 2005 Star Teachers
Award for Texas. Dan is also a
retired Air Force, Master Ser-geant,
teaches elementary school
in San Antonio, TX. Only one
Star Teacher is named for each
state
Bravo Zulu to Eric and Dan.
Hear good things about our Troop
Teachers? Pass it on to this office
for wider, peer recognition!
Email your recognitions to:
jscheue@ ade. az. gov
Volume I Issue 1 Page 5
TRICARE FEE TO INCREASE.
Defense Department officials have drafted plans to raise TRICARE enrollment fees and deductibles sharply over the next three years for military
retirees under age 65 and their families, about three million beneficiaries. If the changes touted by senior Defense officials are adopted, annual en-rollment
fees for TRICARE Prime, the military’s managed care option, would triple by October 2008 for working- age retired officers and double for
enlisted retirees. Yearly deductibles for retirees using TRICARE Standard, the fee- for- service health insurance option, would double for officers and
rise by a third for enlisted. Also, for the first time retirees who use TRICARE Standard would pay an enrollment fee in addition to their deductible.
Pharmacy co- payments also would be raised but for all retirees and their families, regardless of age, if they use the retail drug network or the TRI-CARE
mail order program to buy brand name drugs on the military formulary. The aim of these initiatives is to slow the projected rise in military
healthcare costs by as much as $ 12 billion over five years and $ 32 billion through fiscal 2015. This would occur, proponents argue, by having work-ing-
age retirees pay a greater share of TRICARE costs and by encouraging others to switch to their employer- provided health insurance. One as-sumption
being used to estimate cost savings is that for every 10 percent increase in out- of- pocket costs, the number of beneficiaries using TRICARE
Prime or Standard will fall by one percent. If accurate, 600,000 beneficiaries would drop out of TRICARE plans by 2015. Defense officials have ex-pressed
alarm over a recent migration of retirees into TRICARE and away from employer- provided health insurance. Dr. William Winkenwerder,
assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, has said that some civilian employers are offering their retired military workers cash incentives to use
TRICARE instead of company insurance. Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said defense healthcare spending,
if left unchecked, could reach $ 64 billion by 2015, or 12 percent of total defense spending, endangering a prized benefit. In fiscal 1995, he said, health-care
was only five percent of the defense budget. TRICARE Prime enrollment fees of $ 230 a year for individual coverage and $ 460 for family cover-age,
and the TRICARE Standard deductible of $ 150 ( single) and $ 300 ( family) haven’t been raised since they were set more than a decade ago. Whit-man
said this contributes to growth in department costs. Budget documents contend the TRICARE fee structure in only one- third as costly to users
as equivalent civilian plans. Defense officials not only want fees and deductibles raised for retirees and their families, in three hefty annual increments,
but also want fees after that indexed to inflation so they climb in lockstep each year with growth in medical costs nationwide. Some of the planned
TRICARE increases won’t require a change in law, only in regulation, although department plans for fees are sure to be the subject of congressional
hearings in 2006. Lawmakers could step in to block or amend the plan if the planned increases seem unreasonable. Draft budget papers predict a
“ pushback” from retiree organizations. The first shot was fired Dec. 8 when the Military Coalition, a consortium of 36 service associations and vet-erans’
groups, sent a letter to members of the House and Senate armed service committees urging that they oppose department plans to shift a lar-ger
share of medical costs to retirees. Congress gave military retirees better health benefits as an “ offset to the unique demands and sacrifices in-herent
in a military career,” the coalition said. Requiring them to pay more for health care, the letter argues, “ is not a prudent course of action,
especially when the nation is at war.” The “ benefit adjustment” scenario being discussed, both in the fiscal 2007 budget formulation process and
resource- sharing debate for the Quadrennial Defense Review, calls for all under- 65 retirees to pay more to use TRICARE Prime, Standard and Extra,
the preferred provider network option, but retired officers also would pay more than enlisted retirees. Prime enrollment fees ( now $ 230/$ 460)
would be raised for retired officers to $ 400/$ 800 ( individual/ family) next October, to $ 600/$ 1200 a year later and to $ 750/$ 1500 by October 2008,
the start of fiscal 2009. Enlisted retirees under 65 would see Prime enrollment fees climb to $ 300/$ 600 next October, to $ 375/$ 750 a year later and
to $ 450/$ 900 in October 2008. First- ever enrollment fees for TRICARE Standard would start for officers at $ 150/$ 300 ( individual/ family) and rise
to $ 225/$ 450 by October 2007 and to $ 300/$ 600 in 2008. Enlisted retirees would pay $ 100/$ 200 next October, rising to $ 150/$ 300 the next year
and to $ 200/$ 400 in 2008. Annual deductibles under TRICARE Standard and Extra, now $ 150/$ 300, would climb for retired officers to $ 200/$ 400
next fall, to $ 250/$ 500 in October 2007 and to $ 300/$ 600 in 2008. Enlisted retirees would see their Standard deductible rise to $ 175/$ 350 next
October, remain there for two years and rise to $ 200/ 400 in October 2008. Co- payments under the TRICARE pharmacy program would be re-shaped
to discourage purchase of maintenance medicines in the more expensive retail network. The $ 3 co- payment for generic drugs will rise to $ 5
in the retail network but would be free if order by mail. The current $ 9 co- pay for brand drugs would rise to $ 15 in retail network and $ 10 by mail.
For a detailed chart showing the proposed TRICARE Fee changes visit www. military. com/ TRICARE_ Chart.
Mentoring
1535 West Jefferson
Bin # 46, Room # 121
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Phone: 800- 839- 2134 / Fax: 602- 542- 1141
John Scheuer, Director
Jscheue@ ade. az. gov
602- 542- 4257
Josie Luna, Program Assistant
jluna@ ade. az. gov
602- 542- 3201
" Proud to Serve Again"
www. proudtoserveagain. com
www. ade. az. gov/ troops2teachers
Arizona Troops to Teachers
www. pathway2teach. org
Recommended Reading
This final memoir in the trilogy that started with Angela's Ashes and
continued in ' Tis focuses almost exclusively on McCourt's 30- year
teaching career in New York City's public high schools, which began at
McKee Vocational and Technical in 1958. His first day in class, a fight
broke out and a sandwich was hurled in anger. McCourt immediately
picked it up and ate it. On the second day of class, McCourt's retort
about the Irish and their sheep brought the wrath of the principal
down on him. All McCourt wanted to do was teach, which wasn't easy
in the jumbled bureaucracy of the New York City school system. Pretty
soon he realized the system wasn't run by teachers but by sterile func-tionaries.
" I was uncomfortable with the bureaucrats, the higher- ups,
who had escaped classrooms only to turn and bother the occupants of
those classrooms, teachers and students. I never wanted to fill out
their forms, follow their guidelines, administer their examinations, tol-erate
their snooping, adjust myself to their programs and courses of
study." As McCourt matured in his job, he found ingenious ways to
motivate the kids: have them write " excuse notes" from Adam and Eve
to God; use parts of a pen to define parts of a sentence; use cookbook
recipes to get the students to think creatively. A particularly warming
and enlightening lesson concerns a class of black girls at Seward Park
High School who felt slighted when they were not invited to see a per-formance
of Hamlet, and how they taught McCourt never to have di-minished
expectations about any of his students. McCourt throws down
the gauntlet on education, asserting that teaching is more than achiev-ing
high test scores. It's about educating, about forming intellects,
about getting people to think. McCourt's many fans will of course love
this book, but it also should be mandatory reading for every teacher in
America. And it wouldn't hurt some politicians to read it, too.
( Publishers Weekly)
Teacher Man: A Memoir
Frank McCourt, author
of Angela’s Ashes and Tis.
Glory Denied: The Saga
of Jim Thompson,
America’s Longest Held
Prisoner of War
Tom Philpott, for-ward
by John McCain
Col. Floyd James " Jim" Thompson of the U. S. Army Special Forces was captured by the Vietcong in South Vietnam
in March 1964 and held longer than any other prisoner of war in American history, suffering greatly physically and
emotionally. He was released, along with other American POWs, in March 1973. Thompson's troubles, however,
only multiplied after his release. During his captivity, Thompson's wife, Alyce, moved with their four young chil-dren
into the home of an army sergeant and told the children their father was dead. The Thompsons reunited af-ter
his release, but their marriage soon dissolved, and Thompson later suffered a stroke that diminished his men-tal
capabilities. For this biography, Philpott, who writes the syndicated column " Military Update," interviewed 160
people over 15 years. In an even more v‚ rit‚ manner than Mailer's The Executioner's Song or George Plimpton's
Truman Capote, Philpott tells Thompson's story mainly through the verbatim testimony he gathered from Thomp-son's
family, friends and colleagues, along with various newspaper articles and other ephemera that have col-lected
around Thompson. The Thompson family's postwar lives read like a Jerry Springer show, replete with se-vere
alcoholism, spousal abuse, adultery, teenage pregnancy, bitter divorce and the jailing of Thompson's son on
a murder charge. Philpott arranges the entire story deftly, with the most riveting sections covering Thompson's
incarceration. Much of Thompson's own contributions come from interviews he gave for another book before his
stroke. Philpott himself emerges here mostly through his choices in montage, and his refusal to comment directly
gives this work real dignity. ( May 14) Forecast: A New Yorker abridgement ( Apr. 2 issue), a short foreword from
Vietnam POW Sen. John McCain and release in time for Memorial Day should launch this book with verve, and its
uncanny mix of human and military interest should quickly propel it onto bestseller lists. ( Publishers Weekly)

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January 1, 2006
Volume I Issue 1
Arizona Troops to
Teachers
Teachers. We have seen a drop
of 1/ 3 in the number of troops
registering for the program. If you
have questions, comments or
concerns you would like me to
address at the national conference
please let me know.
As always, we are here to
serve you in your second career.
Feel free to contact us at any time.
Our contact information is on the
last page of the newsletter.
- John D. Scheuer, MA,
Director, AZ TTT
Inauguratory Welcome
Director’s Travel Schedule
Welcome to the initial issue
of The Learning Lamp, the Ari-zona
Troops to Teachers news-letter.
Let me start by first ex-tending
a wish to all of you for a
joyful, prosperous New Year
filled with much happiness and
success. It seemed to me a quite
fitting time to initiate The Learn-ing
Lamp and extend the forms
of communication between all of
us.
Our presence in the class-rooms
across the state is grow-ing.
We have 422 troops to
teachers in the state of Arizona.
Our records show that there are
approximately 200 currently
teaching. We are extending our
numbers in rural areas and on
the reservations in BIA schools.
Our team of troops is unique,
different than many other states
in the variety of populations
around the state.
I would like to also stress just
how important it is to keep this
office ( and the national office in
Pensacola) updated with accu-rate
information. Please let this
office know whenever you move,
change phone numbers, change
email addresses, contract for
positions, or obtain certification/
endorsements. Many of you
have received the survey from
DANTES/ Troops to Teachers.
It is vital to complete the survey
and return it to Florida. When a
survey is not returned, you are
temporarily withdrawn from the
program. This can eventually
effect stipends and bonuses. As
the ‘ 05- 06 school year nears
ending, this office will be con-tacting
you to inquire if you have
contracted for the ‘ 06- 07 school
year, if you would like assistance
locating a position, and/ or to
counsel you on certification/
highly qualified matters.
There is one last matter I
would like to discuss with you.
In late January the state directors
will assemble in Washington DC
for our annual conference. Nor-mally
this conference is held in
Florida. Washington was se-lected
to make legislators aware
of the importance of the pro-gram
as re- authorization nears in
2006. As you are probably
aware, the U. S. Department of
Education recently changed the
rules surrounding stipends and
bonuses through Troops to
• January 9- 13: Western
States Certification Con-sortium,
San Francisco
• January 22- 26: Troops to
Teachers Annual Confer-ence,
Washington DC
• July 16- 23: DoD World-wide
Education Sympo-sium,
Orlando
Flagstaff Certification Office,
2384 Steves Blvd, Rm # 137,
Flagstaff, AZ 86004
( 928) 679- 8117
February 24, April 28, June 30,
August 25, October 27, De-cember
29
Tucson Certification Office,
400 W. Congress St. # 118,
Tucson, AZ 85701
( 520) 628- 6326
January 20, March 24, May 26,
July 28, September 29, Novem-ber
24
Important Info/ Dates:
• Please review your finger-print
card expiration date
• SEI Provisional Endorsement
requirements must be met
by August 31, 2006
• For many teachers, you
must meet highly qualified
by the end of SY05- 06
• Certification offices will be
closed January 16, 2006
• Notify this office is you con-tract,
move, change email,
etc.
Inside this issue:
Inauguratory Welcome
Director’sTravel Schedule
1
1
Certification News
• SEI
• Early Childhood
• MS Mathematics
• Performance
Assessment
2
2
2
3
3
Highly Qualified 3
Professional Development 4
Alternative Path 4
Teacher Preparation 4
Vet’s News 5
Kudos 5
Recommended Reading 6
The Learning Lamp
Where Military Experience and Public Education Meet
Arizona Department of Educa-tion
Tom Horne, Superintendent of
Public Instruction
CERTIFICATION NEWS
August 31, 2009 and have not
met the requirements for both
the Provisional and Full SEI En-dorsement,
you will be denied
renewal.
There is a list of State Board
approved Professional Develop-ment
Trainers and Institutions
providing credits for SEI. You
may view/ download this list at
the following website:
www. ade. state. az. us/ asd/ lep
Click on the link “ State Board
Approved Endorsement Train-ing”
Questions concerning SEI
Endorsements can be directed
either to Kathy Hill, Education
Program Specialist, English Ac-quisition
Services,
khill@ ade. az. gov, ( 602) 542-
3050, or the Troops to Teachers
State Director.
As you are probably aware,
the State Board of Education
approved the requirement of the
Structured English Immersion
( SEI) Endorsement on January
24, 2005. The Endorsement is
required for those holding an
Elementary, Secondary, Principal,
Supervisor, Superintendent,
Career and Technical, and/ or
Special Education certification.
The endorsement is not re-quired
for those holding a Full
ESL Endorsement or a Full Bilin-gual
Endorsement ( may be re-quired
by district rules).
The Provisional SEI Endorse-ment
is required, as applicable,
by August 31, 2006, and requires
completion of 15 clock hours of
professional development or 1
semester hour ( 1 credit). The
Provisional Endorsement does
not need to be obtained on your
certification by August 31, 2006,
but you must meet the require-ments
for the Endorsement and
have the documentation on file
with your district office by that
date. ( Districts may however, at
their discretion, require obtain-ing
Provisional Endorsement)
The Full SEI Endorsement is
required, as applicable, by Au-gust
31, 2009, and requires an
additional 45 clock hours of
professional development or 3
semester hours ( 3 credits).
If you apply at one time to
obtain a Full SEI Endorsement,
you must fulfill both the require-ments
for the Provisional and
Full. In other words, to obtain
the Full SEI Endorsement you
must have documentation of
either 4 semester hours ( 4 cred-its)
or 60 clock hours of profes-sional
development. If you apply
to renew a certification after
Early Childhood Education Fast Facts
• Teachers serving children birth through kindergarten must have either an Early Childhood Certificate or
Endorsement by July 1, 2009
• Early Childhood Certificate or Endorsement is optional, but recommended, for teachers in grades 1- 3.
• Certificates and Endorsements became available September 26, 2005
• AEPA Assessment for Early Childhood will be available Fall, 2006. If you qualify for, and obtain, Certifi-cate
or Endorsement before the assessment, you will not have to take the assessment.
• Certification Requirements:
• Bachelor’s Degree
• Completion of an approved teacher preparation program in early childhood or 37 semester
hours of coursework in early childhood content areas
• Practicum ( student teaching) of at least 8 semester hours ( 4 in birth- preK, 4 in K- 3)
• Passing score on Early Childhood Professional Knowledge and Subject Knowledge AEPAs
• Endorsement Requirements:
• Current AZ Certification in Elementary Education or Special Education
• 21 hours of coursework in early childhood content areas
• Practicum ( student teaching) of at least 8 semester hours
• Passing score on Early Childhood Subject Knowledge APEA
• National Board Certified Teachers in Early Childhood automatically qualify for Endorsement
More information can be obtained by visiting the Early Childhood web site at
http:// www. ade. az. gov/ earlychildhood/
English Acquisition Services
Irene Moreno
Deputy Associate Superintendent
( 602) 542- 0753
Early Childhood Education
Karen Woodhouse
Deputy Associate Superintendent
( 602) 364- 1530
Alisa Cusseaux,
Administrative Assistant,
( 602) 36401984
Early Childhood Certification /
Endorsement questions:
Kasey Ohrns ( 602) 542- 2029
Page 2 The Learning Lamp
We cannot have a
successful education system
unless all children who
come to school not knowing
English become proficient in
English as quickly as
possible, and succeed
academically. We are
committed 100 percent to
helping the schools achieve
that success.
- State Superintendent of
Public Instruction Tom
Horne, Tucson Citizen,
September 3, 2003.
SEI
Middle School Mathematics
Highly Qualified
Performance Assessment
AEPA is available at the AEPA
web site:
www. aepa. nesinc. com
( 800) 239- 8105
The AZ Troops to Teachers
office, as well as the certification
offices in Flagstaff and Tucson
have AEPA bulletins available to
Troops at no cost.
Beginning in the Spring of 2006,
Secondary Education teachers
will be able to become certified
with an approved area of
“ Middle School Mathematics.”
The Middle School Mathematics
Subject Knowledge AEPA (# 37)
will be available beginning with
the April 8, 2006 AEPA admini-stration.
The company administering
the AEPAs, National Evalua-tion
Systems Inc, has not yet
made study guides or test
objectives available to view/
download. It is anticipated
test objectives will be avail-able
first in the early Spring.
Objectives, Study Guides and
other information regarding
refine initial teaching skills.
Until June 1, 2006, two years
full time, verified teaching ex-perience
will suffice in lieu of the
Performance Assessment to
convert any Provisional Certifi-cate
to Standard Certificate.
Questions concerning Perform-ance
Assessment can be ad-dressed
to Lisa Kelley, Education
Program Specialist, Highly Quali-fied
Professionals,
lisa. kelley@ azed. gov, ( 602) 364-
2191, or the AZ Troops to
Teachers State Director.
Beginning June 1, 2006, teachers
obtaining their initial teaching
certification will be required to
pass the Performance Assess-ment
to convert to a Standard
six year certification. The Per-formance
Assessment will re-quire
a video tape of one’s
teaching, written commentary,
and supporting evidence. De-scriptions
of the process and
materials and methods to sup-port
new teachers who will be
affected are being developed.
The Performance Assessment
is for the purpose of licensure
and quality assurance that new
teachers can demonstrate com-petence
in the Arizona Profes-sional
Teaching Standards. The
Assessment will not replace
building principal observations
and evaluations which serve for
purposes of continued employ-ment.
Just as students are given
a number of opportunities to
pass AIMS, teachers will be al-lowed
to attempt the Perform-ance
Assessment up to five
times. We recommend testing
in third year of career to allow
opportunity to practice and
Before even addressing the sub-ject
of being highly qualified, you
must first be appropriately certi-fied!
In other words, you can
not hold a Secondary Teaching
Certification with an approved
area of Physical Education and
teach 5 classes of Mathematics.
If you teach Mathematics you
must have it as an approved area
on your certification. You can
not hold an Elementary Teaching
Certification and teach Art
unless you have an Art Endorse-ment.
Being appropriately certi-fied
is prerequisite to being
highly qualified.
The Department of Educa-tion
has assembled a “ crosswalk”
to present a visual aid to deter-mine
if you are appropriately
certified and/ or highly qualified.
There are deadlines for which a
teacher must meet highly quali-fied
status as can be seen to the
right.
Information on Highly Quali-fied
requirements may be ad-dressed
to the AZ Troops to
Teachers State Director or to
Vickie Walters, Education Pro-gram
Specialist, Highly Qualified
Professionals Unit, vwal-ter@
ade. az. gov, ( 602) 364- 2192.
More information is also avail-able
by visiting the Department
of Education’s HQ web page at:
www/ ade. az. gov/ asd/ hqtp
A New AEPA exam will be
available in April 2006 to obtain
certification for an approved
area of Middle Grade Mathemat-ics.
Generally speaking, middle
school math consists of low- mid
level algebra and geometry.
Page 3
Are you a competent
teacher? The “ new”
Performance Assessment
will determine what
teachers progress from the
two year certification to the
six year certification.
Volume I Issue 1
Veteran, multi- subject teacher in eligible
rural district*
School Year ‘ 06- 07
New, multi- subject teacher in eligible rural
district
Must be HQ in one area at
time of hire, 2 yrs to be-come
HQ in other areas
New, multi- subject SPED teacher Must be HQ in Math, LA,
or Science at time of hire,
2 yrs to become HQ in
other areas
ALL Other Teachers in All state and char-ter
schools
End of School Year ‘ 05- 06
* a list of eligible REAP schools is available at www. ade. az. gov/ asd/ hqtp
You may view/ download AZ math standards at: www. ade. az. gov/ standards/ contentstandards. asp
Professional Development
Alternative Secondary Path To Certification
For information on profes-sional
development opportuni-ties
beyond that provided by
schools, see the Department’s
Professional Development web
page at:
www. ade. az. gov/ resourcecenter/
professional_ development. asp
To view the professional
development activities that apply
to certification requirements go
to:
www. ade. az. gov/ certification/
prodevactiv. asp
The Department of Educa-tion
has some new, innovative
programs to help you develop as
an educator. As we already
know, a number of professional
development hours are required
to renew the standard six year
teaching certificates. The De-partment
has expanded profes-sional
development opportuni-ties
beyond that provided by
individual districts/ schools.
By first creating the Profes-sional
Development Leadership
Academy ( www. ade. az. gov/ ess/
PDLA/), and more recently
IDEAL ( Integrated Data to En-hance
Arizona’s Learning)
( https:// www. ideal. azed. gov/ cas/)
along with ASSET ( Arizona
School Services Through Educa-tional
Technology)
( www. asset. asu. edu), the De-partment
strives to provide a
wide variety of options for
teachers to develop profession-ally.
More notably has been the
recent integration of Teachscape
into professional development
programs of 33 schools. Teach-scape
provides a multitude of
tools for educators, from online
videos and case analysis, to
online nationwide conferencing,
to a vast document resource
library to links to local “ experts
in the field.”
• 3.0 or higher GPA
• Passing score on the Sub-ject
Knowledge AEPA
• Valid fingerprint card
• “ Letter of Intent to Hire”
from a participating school
district
www. ade. az. gov/ asd/ altpath
Contact: Troops to Teachers
State Director, or Sharon
Turley, Education Program Spe-cialist,
Transition to Teaching.
( 602) 364- 3553,
sturley@ ade. az. gov
Still haven’t earned your teaching
certification? Do you desire to
teach high school? Well, Ari-zona’s
pilot program
“ Alternative Secondary Path to
Certification” just may be what
you’ve been waiting for. You
may have read about this same
program in the Arizona Republic
in their sensationalized term
“ Instant Teacher.” Though you
are not an instant teacher, this
particular program has many
facets that bridge mid career
changers, such as our Troops, to
classroom teachers. Benefits of
the program include:
• Teach immediately follow-ing
the summer training
program and receive full
teacher salary and benefits
• Tuition reimbursement may
be available if you teach in a
high need school and meet
certain other requirements.
• Support of 15- 20 teacher
cohort
• Enter classroom Highly
Qualified.
Requirements:
• Bachelor’s Degree or above
Teacher Prep Programs learning M. Ed., Ed. D., and
Ph. D. degrees in education.
Their programs, however,
do not lead a candidate to
certification. There is no
student teaching/ practicum
in a program through this
institution.
3. www. teachforamerica. org
( also provides up to $ 9,450
in education awards)
When comparing programs
feel free to contact me to deter-mine
which programs meet cer-tification
requirements.
Our AZ Troops to Teachers
web page will soon be updated
with a new section that outlines
a number of available teacher
prep programs.
Three programs you should
know about:
1. University of Great Falls
and Bellevue have part-nered
into a consortium
“ Teach for a Change”
which offers distance learn-ing
Master of Arts in
Teaching ( MAT) degrees
for secondary teachers and
includes a coordinated local
student teaching/ practicum
of 12 credits. The tuition
cost for the MAT is just
over $ 17K ($ 405/ cr). You
may obtain program infor-mation
from the AZ
Troops to Teachers State
Director or by visiting
www. teachforachange. org
2. North Central University in
Prescott offers distance
Make sure you are gaining ade-quate
professional development
hours to keep your certification
current.
What Program Should You Chose
to Become a Teacher in Arizona?
Let the Troops to Teachers staff
offer suggestions/ guidance.
Page 4 The Learning Lamp
Veteran’s News...
KUDO’s
If you are currently teaching
( preferably 3+ years), and would be
interested in mentoring new Troop
Teachers, please review the men-toring
guidelines at the national
Troops to Teachers web page:
www. dantes. doded. mil/ dantes_ web/
troopstoteach-ers/
mentor/ mentor1. htm? Flag= True
If you’d like to be added to the
state Troops web page to mentor
AZ Troops, please notify the AZ
Troops to Teachers State Director.
A hearty congratulations to
fellow Troop to Teacher Eric
Combs who was selected as
Ohio’s Teacher of the Year on
December 14th. Eric is a retired
Air Force Senior Master Ser-geant
and teaches Social Studies
at Fairborn City Schools. You
may be interested in going to his
web site at:
www. mrcombshistory. com
Also, congratulations to Troop
to Teacher Dan Lieja who was
awarded the Department of
Education 2005 Star Teachers
Award for Texas. Dan is also a
retired Air Force, Master Ser-geant,
teaches elementary school
in San Antonio, TX. Only one
Star Teacher is named for each
state
Bravo Zulu to Eric and Dan.
Hear good things about our Troop
Teachers? Pass it on to this office
for wider, peer recognition!
Email your recognitions to:
jscheue@ ade. az. gov
Volume I Issue 1 Page 5
TRICARE FEE TO INCREASE.
Defense Department officials have drafted plans to raise TRICARE enrollment fees and deductibles sharply over the next three years for military
retirees under age 65 and their families, about three million beneficiaries. If the changes touted by senior Defense officials are adopted, annual en-rollment
fees for TRICARE Prime, the military’s managed care option, would triple by October 2008 for working- age retired officers and double for
enlisted retirees. Yearly deductibles for retirees using TRICARE Standard, the fee- for- service health insurance option, would double for officers and
rise by a third for enlisted. Also, for the first time retirees who use TRICARE Standard would pay an enrollment fee in addition to their deductible.
Pharmacy co- payments also would be raised but for all retirees and their families, regardless of age, if they use the retail drug network or the TRI-CARE
mail order program to buy brand name drugs on the military formulary. The aim of these initiatives is to slow the projected rise in military
healthcare costs by as much as $ 12 billion over five years and $ 32 billion through fiscal 2015. This would occur, proponents argue, by having work-ing-
age retirees pay a greater share of TRICARE costs and by encouraging others to switch to their employer- provided health insurance. One as-sumption
being used to estimate cost savings is that for every 10 percent increase in out- of- pocket costs, the number of beneficiaries using TRICARE
Prime or Standard will fall by one percent. If accurate, 600,000 beneficiaries would drop out of TRICARE plans by 2015. Defense officials have ex-pressed
alarm over a recent migration of retirees into TRICARE and away from employer- provided health insurance. Dr. William Winkenwerder,
assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, has said that some civilian employers are offering their retired military workers cash incentives to use
TRICARE instead of company insurance. Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said defense healthcare spending,
if left unchecked, could reach $ 64 billion by 2015, or 12 percent of total defense spending, endangering a prized benefit. In fiscal 1995, he said, health-care
was only five percent of the defense budget. TRICARE Prime enrollment fees of $ 230 a year for individual coverage and $ 460 for family cover-age,
and the TRICARE Standard deductible of $ 150 ( single) and $ 300 ( family) haven’t been raised since they were set more than a decade ago. Whit-man
said this contributes to growth in department costs. Budget documents contend the TRICARE fee structure in only one- third as costly to users
as equivalent civilian plans. Defense officials not only want fees and deductibles raised for retirees and their families, in three hefty annual increments,
but also want fees after that indexed to inflation so they climb in lockstep each year with growth in medical costs nationwide. Some of the planned
TRICARE increases won’t require a change in law, only in regulation, although department plans for fees are sure to be the subject of congressional
hearings in 2006. Lawmakers could step in to block or amend the plan if the planned increases seem unreasonable. Draft budget papers predict a
“ pushback” from retiree organizations. The first shot was fired Dec. 8 when the Military Coalition, a consortium of 36 service associations and vet-erans’
groups, sent a letter to members of the House and Senate armed service committees urging that they oppose department plans to shift a lar-ger
share of medical costs to retirees. Congress gave military retirees better health benefits as an “ offset to the unique demands and sacrifices in-herent
in a military career,” the coalition said. Requiring them to pay more for health care, the letter argues, “ is not a prudent course of action,
especially when the nation is at war.” The “ benefit adjustment” scenario being discussed, both in the fiscal 2007 budget formulation process and
resource- sharing debate for the Quadrennial Defense Review, calls for all under- 65 retirees to pay more to use TRICARE Prime, Standard and Extra,
the preferred provider network option, but retired officers also would pay more than enlisted retirees. Prime enrollment fees ( now $ 230/$ 460)
would be raised for retired officers to $ 400/$ 800 ( individual/ family) next October, to $ 600/$ 1200 a year later and to $ 750/$ 1500 by October 2008,
the start of fiscal 2009. Enlisted retirees under 65 would see Prime enrollment fees climb to $ 300/$ 600 next October, to $ 375/$ 750 a year later and
to $ 450/$ 900 in October 2008. First- ever enrollment fees for TRICARE Standard would start for officers at $ 150/$ 300 ( individual/ family) and rise
to $ 225/$ 450 by October 2007 and to $ 300/$ 600 in 2008. Enlisted retirees would pay $ 100/$ 200 next October, rising to $ 150/$ 300 the next year
and to $ 200/$ 400 in 2008. Annual deductibles under TRICARE Standard and Extra, now $ 150/$ 300, would climb for retired officers to $ 200/$ 400
next fall, to $ 250/$ 500 in October 2007 and to $ 300/$ 600 in 2008. Enlisted retirees would see their Standard deductible rise to $ 175/$ 350 next
October, remain there for two years and rise to $ 200/ 400 in October 2008. Co- payments under the TRICARE pharmacy program would be re-shaped
to discourage purchase of maintenance medicines in the more expensive retail network. The $ 3 co- payment for generic drugs will rise to $ 5
in the retail network but would be free if order by mail. The current $ 9 co- pay for brand drugs would rise to $ 15 in retail network and $ 10 by mail.
For a detailed chart showing the proposed TRICARE Fee changes visit www. military. com/ TRICARE_ Chart.
Mentoring
1535 West Jefferson
Bin # 46, Room # 121
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Phone: 800- 839- 2134 / Fax: 602- 542- 1141
John Scheuer, Director
Jscheue@ ade. az. gov
602- 542- 4257
Josie Luna, Program Assistant
jluna@ ade. az. gov
602- 542- 3201
" Proud to Serve Again"
www. proudtoserveagain. com
www. ade. az. gov/ troops2teachers
Arizona Troops to Teachers
www. pathway2teach. org
Recommended Reading
This final memoir in the trilogy that started with Angela's Ashes and
continued in ' Tis focuses almost exclusively on McCourt's 30- year
teaching career in New York City's public high schools, which began at
McKee Vocational and Technical in 1958. His first day in class, a fight
broke out and a sandwich was hurled in anger. McCourt immediately
picked it up and ate it. On the second day of class, McCourt's retort
about the Irish and their sheep brought the wrath of the principal
down on him. All McCourt wanted to do was teach, which wasn't easy
in the jumbled bureaucracy of the New York City school system. Pretty
soon he realized the system wasn't run by teachers but by sterile func-tionaries.
" I was uncomfortable with the bureaucrats, the higher- ups,
who had escaped classrooms only to turn and bother the occupants of
those classrooms, teachers and students. I never wanted to fill out
their forms, follow their guidelines, administer their examinations, tol-erate
their snooping, adjust myself to their programs and courses of
study." As McCourt matured in his job, he found ingenious ways to
motivate the kids: have them write " excuse notes" from Adam and Eve
to God; use parts of a pen to define parts of a sentence; use cookbook
recipes to get the students to think creatively. A particularly warming
and enlightening lesson concerns a class of black girls at Seward Park
High School who felt slighted when they were not invited to see a per-formance
of Hamlet, and how they taught McCourt never to have di-minished
expectations about any of his students. McCourt throws down
the gauntlet on education, asserting that teaching is more than achiev-ing
high test scores. It's about educating, about forming intellects,
about getting people to think. McCourt's many fans will of course love
this book, but it also should be mandatory reading for every teacher in
America. And it wouldn't hurt some politicians to read it, too.
( Publishers Weekly)
Teacher Man: A Memoir
Frank McCourt, author
of Angela’s Ashes and Tis.
Glory Denied: The Saga
of Jim Thompson,
America’s Longest Held
Prisoner of War
Tom Philpott, for-ward
by John McCain
Col. Floyd James " Jim" Thompson of the U. S. Army Special Forces was captured by the Vietcong in South Vietnam
in March 1964 and held longer than any other prisoner of war in American history, suffering greatly physically and
emotionally. He was released, along with other American POWs, in March 1973. Thompson's troubles, however,
only multiplied after his release. During his captivity, Thompson's wife, Alyce, moved with their four young chil-dren
into the home of an army sergeant and told the children their father was dead. The Thompsons reunited af-ter
his release, but their marriage soon dissolved, and Thompson later suffered a stroke that diminished his men-tal
capabilities. For this biography, Philpott, who writes the syndicated column " Military Update," interviewed 160
people over 15 years. In an even more v‚ rit‚ manner than Mailer's The Executioner's Song or George Plimpton's
Truman Capote, Philpott tells Thompson's story mainly through the verbatim testimony he gathered from Thomp-son's
family, friends and colleagues, along with various newspaper articles and other ephemera that have col-lected
around Thompson. The Thompson family's postwar lives read like a Jerry Springer show, replete with se-vere
alcoholism, spousal abuse, adultery, teenage pregnancy, bitter divorce and the jailing of Thompson's son on
a murder charge. Philpott arranges the entire story deftly, with the most riveting sections covering Thompson's
incarceration. Much of Thompson's own contributions come from interviews he gave for another book before his
stroke. Philpott himself emerges here mostly through his choices in montage, and his refusal to comment directly
gives this work real dignity. ( May 14) Forecast: A New Yorker abridgement ( Apr. 2 issue), a short foreword from
Vietnam POW Sen. John McCain and release in time for Memorial Day should launch this book with verve, and its
uncanny mix of human and military interest should quickly propel it onto bestseller lists. ( Publishers Weekly)